Book Review: Creaturae Vol 1 by Patrick Larme

Here's the sketchbook of French cartoonist and illustrator Patrick Larme. It's kind of him to mail me this book because I would not have discovered it on my own. Creaturae Vol 1 is a 66-page large-format hardcover sketchbook.

Patrick Larme has always been fascinated by the world of faeries. And in this book he shares the wonderful character designs for the fairies, sprites, mermaids and other fantasy creatures and spirits. Note that there are some nudity.

The artworks are a mixture of pencils sketches, ink and coloured pieces. For some reason, the pencil sketches seem to be more detailed. In some cases, there are the draft sketches followed by the finished coloured pieces, and I felt that the penciled pieces looked better.

I actually prefer the character sketches for the orcs, gnomes, trolls, fauns compared the female sprites or fairies.

My favourite section is the last section where the dragons and chimeras are featured. The dragons have a very nice caricature cartoony style. Most of the sketches here are coloured with watercolour and it really suits the scales and textures of the dragons.

You can get his sketchbook from publisher YIL Edition (email to find out shipping charges) and Amazon (UK | FR)

Also check out more of his artworks at https://www.patricklarme.com

Oops. Nudity.